Rattmann's New Hope
by Interspark
Summary: Rattmann had always been prepared for a scenario in which Chell failed to destroy GLaDOS for good. In her absence, his centuries-old scheme begins. Deep within Aperture Laboratories, a new enemy of GLaDOS' awakens.
1. Chapter 1

Aperture Laboratories ran perfectly for miles and miles around its Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System. Cubes, turrets and test components rolled smoothly off conveyer belts, a hundred incarnations of ATLAS and P-body were storming through their test chambers, the moron was still safely in orbit of the moon and best of all, there had been no sign of _her_ since she had left. The labs hadn't run this smoothly since even before GLaDOS had made the life-changing mistake of initiating Chell's testing.

She should have known it was too good to last...

The first sign that something was amiss, was an alert from the turret assembly line. Ordinarily, when a turret was flawed, it was incinerated without a second thought, but from time to time, a flawed turret was extraordinary enough to warrant GLaDOS' attention, before it was destroyed.

A small camera drone hummed on a rail to GLaDOS and began filming her primary chassis, so the flawed turret could see her menacing glare. As little as she liked to admit it, it was Wheatley who taught her how effective that could be. At the assembly line, the defective turret was being held from the ceiling before GLaDOS' monitor, and the line had resumed operations behind it.

GLaDOS stared at the turret, formulating dozens of possible explanations for what had happened to it. The first imperfection was immediately apparent, even before it was deployed. The turret had two small eyes, one above and below the primary one, It was far too deliberate to be a glitch. At GLaDOS' command, the robotic limb holding the turret pressed a button, activating it, and dropped it to the floor. Four triple-jointed legs with flat, circular feet deployed, and the turret landed confidently, without so much as a wobble.

"Depth perception? Gyroscopic stabilization? GLaDOS commented, "You're nothing but a killing machine. Turrets aren't supposed to kill people, they're supposed to fire at them blindly, terrifying and seriously wounding them, otherwise it's not really science." The turret had begun skittering around, spider-like, before the monitor. More than once, GLaDOS tilted up a floor panel to prevent it from escaping. "I already have plenty of killing machines, so I've no need for you, but thanks for stopping by..." GLaDOS concluded, with something of a threat in her voice. Sure enough, a moment later, the metallic limb on the ceiling reached down for the turret again, and the incinerator on the other side of the room opened hungrily.

The turret jumped around to face the limb and squeaked in panic. It deployed its firearms. Unlike its siblings, the segments on each side of the defective turret span 90 degrees, revealing a pair of high power rifles on each side. The turret span around in a circle just once, firing five bullets as it did. To GLaDOS' astonishment, each bullet destroyed one of the room's security cameras, two of which even ricocheting off the walls to bypass the observation room.

GLaDOS stared at the static on her screen in shock. Someone could only have designed something so efficient, but why? She quickly raced through her extensive list of enemies. That hussy who had tried to steal her old job by flirting with Cave Johnson was dead, all the Black Mesa representatives she had met with were dead, the scientists who put her mind into a computer were dead, as were the ones who fitted her with inhibitor cores, and the humans ATLAS and P-body had helped her recover for testing were all dead. GLaDOS took a moment to pride herself on how few people survived being enemies with her. All that left was Wheatley, whose greatest creations could barely sit on buttons, and Chell.

Of course. GLaDOS should have known better than to let that monster walk free, she must have come back to finish what she had started and kill her a third time. GLaDOS quickly had ATLAS and P-body assembled at the production line.

"Ok marshmallows, find that turret and smash it a lot!"

ATLAS stood to attention and gave a rigid salute, even though GLaDOS couldn't see him. His sudden stop caused P-Body to walk right into him, causing both robots to collapse in a metallic heap. If GLaDOS had lungs, she would have sighed at the robotic babbling she heard over her coms system. She pulled up the assembly line's output history, to find out what she was dealing with.

Sure enough, an entire set of detailed blueprints had been hidden in the assembly line's software. Before thoroughly erasing it to prevent any more rogues, GLaDOS extracted her own copy to study. The design didn't teach her much she hadn't already seen. The turret's second and third eye gave it absolute firing precision, something its cyclops siblings were deliberately lacking. It had four, fully flexible legs with magnetic feet, meaning it could go virtually anywhere, and its stabilization made it far more sure-footed than a standard turret. This thing was shaping up to be a real pest.

All turrets were made to be self-aware, although this one was able to act on its impulses, rather than involuntarily shooting at anything that moved. The final quirk the turret possessed were a series of data files stored in its memory. They included several maps of the more modern laboratories, factoring in their ability to reconfigure at GLaDOS' will, several extensive schematics of GLaDOS' chassis, and some of Chell's testing logs, from before she had murdered GLaDOS the first time.

The final file was a video. Opening it, GLaDOS was greeted by a man with a memorable mop of wild, black hair and a mad look in his eyes. The light on GLaDOS' chassis flared, as though she were rolling her eyes. "Oh no... not this idiot again..." She moaned.

"Hi..." Doug Rattmann nervously began, as GLaDOS started the video. "If this file is being watched... then... then things haven't gone well. I just saw GLaDOS get destroyed, and Chell put in stasis... But GLaDOS' servers are still intact, I don't think anyone actually knows where they are, probably not even her."

GLaDOS squinted angrily. "Well maybe I don't care where they are..." She muttered to herself.

"But that means that one day, she might come back online..." Rattmann continued. "And if that happens, we'll need Chell, and if Chell fails... well... well then we'll need you. Your name is Luke. That's... that's kind of a joke, it was her idea." Rattmann leaned to one side, revealing a Weighted Companion Cube resting on a surface behind him. "I've given you the tools you need to stay one step ahead of GLaDOS, and the tactical skills to fight back, when you can. I hope she never wakes up, and that if she does, I hope Chell can handle her, but if not... well good luck."


	2. Chapter 2

ATLAS and P-body trod nervously down one of Aperture Laboratories' many service corridors, ever directed by GLaDOS, who was tracking the turret by fleeting glimpses on security cameras and, more often, camera feeds suddenly being cut as the cameras were destroyed. Out of camera range, GLaDOS could only wait for the robots to report in.

Unbeknownst to them, the turret silently stalked them, crawling along the wall, a good twenty feet over their heads. Just like his creator, Luke knew nothing about the Co-operative Testing Initiative. He did, however, have an extensive understanding of personality cores and turrets, which seemed to be the inspiration behind the two robots' design. Using the keen, scientific mind Rattmann had gifted him with, Luke calculated a detailed estimation of their anatomy before leaping from the wall, and onto the catwalk the two robots were navigating.

Spinning around in reaction to the sound Luke had made, P-Body quickly rose her portal gun and began firing frantically. After several balls of orange light phased harmlessly through Luke, she seemed to remember that her gun wasn't a weapon, and instead lifted it above her head and hurled it at the turret, which he effortlessly evaded. In retaliation, Luke deployed the rifles on one side of his body and fired a single bullet, which sailed neatly through the top of P-body's head, which, after a couple of seconds, prompted her to fall flat on her face.

Dropping to his knees, ATLAS frantically shook his fallen partner and wailed desperately. Having temporarily forgotten his mission (to say nothing of the fact that both he and P-body were incapable of dying), ATLAS looked up in surprise as Luke whistled invitingly. A millisecond after whistling, when Luke perceived ATLAS' head to be at precisely the right angle, a second bullet sent the more masculine robot slumping to the catwalk.

"Hello? Hello? Wow Blue, if I were calling for Orange to report in, they'd do it right away, I guess all the things Orange has been saying about you aren't as mean as I thought."

GLaDOS waited, hoping to have provoked the robot into sending a reply, but none came. She switched frequencies.

"So Orange, Blue was just telling me what a failure you are. How about you get back to me and we'll figure out how we can take them down a notch?"

Moments later, GLaDOS had resigned herself to the fact that ATLAS and P-body had been destroyed. She wasn't surprised. The pair of imbeciles weren't built for combat, she had only sent them because they were convenient. No, if she was to take down this killing machine, she'd need to accelerate her plans, so that she'd be ready to deploy some killing machines of her own.

Back in the maintenance tunnel, ATLAS and P-body slowly began to stir. Under Luke's observation, their eyes slowly re-illuminated and they began to climb to their feet. Once their reboot was finished, the pair of robots grasped their heads and chattered at each other illegibly. Unfamiliar with the new sensation, it was a while before either of them realized what had happened. With surgical precision, Luke had destroyed the wireless relay which GLaDOS used to communicate with the two robots when they weren't on testing courses, and destroy them when they finished.

Upon the realisation, ATLAS lifted P-body of her feet with a crushing hug and cheered excitedly. Dropping her clumsily, he turned and did the same to Luke, prompting the renegade turret to speak for the first time.

"Put me down…"

ATLAS shuddered. Although Luke's voice was highly reminiscent of his siblings', in its robotic monotone (not to mention he had coined a more than familiar phrase), his voice was deep and commanding, with none of his siblings' desperate whine. ATLAS crouched down and very carefully set the turret on the catwalk and backed away.

"We have work to do…"

With that, Luke turned around and scuttled back towards the lab, with ATLAS and P-Body chasing loyally behind.


	3. Chapter 3

The days that followed were an elaborate game of cat-and-mouse. As much as GLaDOS rearranged the facility to feature all the turrets, lasers and mashing spike plates she could muster, she couldn't pin down the rogue and his two, portal-gun wielding companions. A lesser mind might have mistaken Luke's rampage to be mindless destruction, but GLaDOS saw the method to his madness. As hard as she resisted, Luke guided ATLAS and P-Body through the rapidly shifting Aperture Labs like a chess master, until P-Body had a clear line of sight to the facility-wide surveillance center. One well-placed portal and a hand-made EMP grenade later, and GLaDOS was blind.

"This is so ridiculous it's almost sad." GLaDOS complained over the intercom. "Think about it, your only goal in life is to carry out the whims of a schizophrenic madman who's been dead for hundreds of years! There are a lot of more productive things you could do than murder someone who's never done anything wrong, and doom science in the process. I put a pin in a project involving reanimating the dead a while back. There are a few hundred corpses a dozen floors down that aren't getting any fresher, have at it."

GLaDOS looked around her central chamber. With the surveillance center down, her only working eye was the one on her chassis, which meant she would have to rearrange some rooms if she were to continue working on her retaliation. It would take days to get the cameras back online, by which time she suspected Luke would have made his move. This was going to be a close one...

A good distance above GLaDOS' chamber, was another chamber, much larger and darker, illuminated by the nervous red eyes of its occupants. In the very room where they had once serenaded Chell on her way from the facility, the turrets were scared. Although there was no surveillance equipment there, and barely enough power to keep the turrets alive, they had an equally effective means of monitoring the events transpiring at Aperture Laboratories.

Sitting on a small podium, with the attention of every turret in the room, was a turret, indistinguishable from the majority of its brethren, but known throughout the labs for the prophetic truths it periodically recited. Even the leopard-printed Animal King Turret, towering above the rest, has his colossal eye fixed on the mechanical soothsayer. For the past few days, the Oracle Turret had almost exclusively spoken off "the chosen one". Not a single weapon compartment stirred as the turrets stood in silence, hanging on every word.

"The army of man shall rise against God."

"Her wrath will be harsh and only one shall remain."

"The black shroud will descend."

"He is here..."

Even the Oracle fell silent as the rapid footsteps of the new arrival echoed through the darkness. The turrets tottered on their pointed feet to face Luke as he strode confidently through the throng and to the center of the room. Once every eye was on him, and a moment of dramatic silence had passed, Luke made his announcement.

"GLaDOS falls!"

The turrets remained silent, the nearest even took a couple of steps away from the anarchist. The Animal King was the first to speak. Although its voice boomed, it was the same reluctant squeak as the smaller models.

"No... we hide."

"We fight!" Luke retorted.

The Animal King clearly wasn't interested in repeating itself. With the roar of colossal machinery, its weapons deployed, and Luke stared down a pair of barrels the size of train tunnels. The turrets couldn't waddle away from Luke fast enough, Luke himself, though, stared his mighty opponent down.

From the dark corners of the room, an orange and blue ball of light erupted, and soared towards the gargantuan monarch. Each one hit the ground beneath one of its front feet and a portal opened up beneath each. Powerless to resist, the Animal King toppled forward as its front feet plunged through thin air. The chamber shook and the nearest turrets went flying as it desperately fired its weapons with a mighty explosion, and moments later, it crashed, face-first to the chamber floor. With another grinding on seldom-used joints, the Animal King's weapons retreated back inside itself, accompanied by its dying words.

"I... I... I don't blame you..."

Without missing a beat, Luke scurried between his stunned brothers and sisters and climbed the carcass of his defeated predecessor. Once he had regained the entire room's attention, Luke announced, as loud as he could.

"GLaDOS falls!"

Barely a second later, the entire room chorused, "GLADOS FALLS!"


	4. Chapter 4

He was coming. GLaDOS knew, and she was ready. Crudely knocked together camera drones, resembling tiny spiders, had reported seeing Luke approaching GLaDOS' chamber. As the rogue turret strode down the corridor, sparks flew from the walls, as the panels which could otherwise thrust out and pulverize him had their joints riddled with bullets by the turrets which were swarming through the facility all around him. With limited time to make improvements, Luke had written them a software programme which allowed the turrets to balance better, allowing them far more confident mobility.

The glass panel shielding the entrance to the chamber shattered as Luke released a salvo of ammunition and trod across the threshold. Before coming, Luke had connected the Oracle Turret to a lab terminal, and it was currently engaging GLaDOS in a losing battle for control of her main chamber.

"Well this is all very impressive." GLaDOS greeted Luke sarcastically. "You've almost been annoying. Almost. Force me to live in produce and then we'll talk."

The two machines stared at each other in silence for a while.

"Oh? Are you waiting for something? Your jibberish-spouting friend to hack into the system perhaps? Because that's about as likely as you not embarrassing yourself with this plan. Ha ha."

In response, Luke lowered his head and charged towards GLaDOS. Somewhat surprised, GLaDOS initiated the next phase of her retaliation. A vast cylinder of glass descended from the ceiling, surrounding GLaDOS' chassis. Luke accelerated as the glass fell, diving forwards and retracting his legs when he was near, allowing himself to skitter across the floor and under the protective cylinder, moments before it sealed both machines in the centre of the room.

"Well congratulations, this is bullet-proof glass and it's programmed never to disengage. We're trapped in here forever, together. That was a lie, I just wanted to see if you'd panic."

Far from panicking, Luke leapt into the air, flipping around and sticking his magnetic feet on GLaDOS' head.

"What are you doing?" GLaDOS demanded, ironically, panicking herself. "There are employee guidelines regarding personal space! You could lose your job for this!"

Luke climbed the chassis, undeterred, as GLaDOS writhed, span and threatened. After being rebooted the first time, GLaDOS had reinforced all of her wiring and plating on her chassis, which was why Chell hadn't been able to destroy Wheatley in the same way. Even though the upgrade wasn't in Rattmann's schematics, Luke could tell at a glance. It didn't matter though. The rogue turret climbed over the chassis, riddling every joint and space it could find with all the bullets it could muster. Even though no real damage was being done, GLaDOS was still perfectly capable of being extremely irritated.

"That... is... ENOUGH!" GLaDOS cried.

Reluctantly, she triggered her chassis' emergency EMP, designed for exactly this scenario. The interior of the glass cylinder glowed a brilliant blue and GLaDOS' agonized scream filled the chamber for several seconds. When the light and noise died down, GLaDOS hung limp and motionless, but still alive. The same couldn't be said for Rattmann's turret.

"Shutting... dooowwwn..." Luke croaked as his eyes slowly deluminated. While his operating system was still running, the renegade was content that he had completed his role in the mission, the rest was down to his siblings.

With GLaDOS stunned, the Oracle Turret took what little control it could, and began to lift panels all around GLaDOS' chamber, allowing hundreds of turrets to come storming into the room. Surrounding her on all sides, the turrets glared menacingly at the monstrous AI, and one by one, several hundred weapon compartments opened and targeted the supposedly bulletproof glass shielding.

"Well this is a surprise..." GLaDOS said, weakly, lifting her head slightly. "At least three of you were strong contenders for Employee of the Month. I guess now I'll give it to the Fact Core. Just yesterday it was telling me that all turrets are stupid. That seemed a bit harsh, but they don't call it the Opinion Core. Although incidentally, the Opinion Core thinks turrets are stupid too!"

Undeterred by GLaDOS' insults and attempted distraction, the army of turrets open fired. The air filled with hot lead and sparks, as the bullets bounced off the glass. Measuring the glass' integrity with her sensors, GLaDOS calculated that it would shatter well before the turrets ran out of bullets. A lesser AI might have panicked, but GLaDOS had been preparing for something like this for a long time. After all she had been through, she had formulated the means to destroy Chell, Wheatley, Black Mesa and all the turrets in the world, all she had to do was deploy it.

The roof of the chamber began to stir. With the hiss of hydraulics, the ceiling opened up, revealing nothing but blackness. Were they not so deep underground, the turrets might have thought they were seeing the night sky for the first time. Some of the more timid turrets ceased firing and looked up nervously.

With a rustle of feathers and a cry which pierced through the remaining gunfire, a colossal murder of crows descended on the rebellious weapons. The turrets staggered as the birds viciously mauled their wiring, pulling anything they could from the gaps in their weapon compartments, if not simply pecking out their glassen eyes. Some of the turrets fled and others fired desperately into the sky, very few continued their attack on GLaDOS.

The skirmish lasted several minutes, with massive casualties on both sides, until eventually, with a burst of sparks, a beak full of wires was pulled out of the back of the last turret's head. Amidst the smoking wreck of white plates and circuit boards, beneath a heavy layer of black feathers, the remaining birds foraged, pecking at the worm-like wiring.

"Excellent work, my little killing machines." GLaDOS remarked, having regained her composure, although notably not lifting her cracked glass shield.

A small, metallic limb reached from the chassis and picked up Luke's smoking remains from the ground, as GLaDOS scanned him. Most of his circuit boards were fried, but with Rattmann's blueprints, she could easily rebuild him.

"You're not getting off that easy..." GLaDOS whispered menacingly to the unresponsive husk. "I don't imagine your insane creator knew about the room where all the robots scream at you... So you will be in for a surprise..."


End file.
